Keep Your Computer Virus and Spy/Adware Free…for Free

[vbainchicago]

Keep Your Computer Virus and Spy/Adware Free…for Free

A common theme I notice in notice in this, and just about every other forum I frequent is people who have a virus, adware, spyware posting messages for help.

I've been an avid fan of both the free personal edition of AVG and the free spy/adware removal tool, Spybot Search and Destroy for quite some time. Both programs are top notch, and they are free. Not "free for 30 days then pay an activation charge free", they are 100% FREE.

I was happy to see that in the most recent issue of Maximum PC (March I think) the writers of that magazine did a review of McAffe, Norton & AVG. AVG, the free version, got a higher rating than either of the other products. It's about time this great app got a little "mainstream" credit.

With that said, USE THESE PROGRAMS. Using both, and keeping them up to date will save you more trouble than you can imagine.

I host links to both packages on my site. You can find the info at:

http://www.jjscomputing.com/Virus Cleansing.htm

And no, I don't make any $ off suggesting these. I'm just so impressed with both that I try and suggest them to people as often as possible.


VBAinChicago

http://www.jjscomputing.com

For Fun -

http://www.321google.com

 

[noellees1]

I would also suggest Adaware 6 and Sygate or Keiro Firewall, these are all free as well.
CwShredder is useful for spyware as well.
WinStockFix Also fixes a lot of networking problems assosiated with removing spyware

 

[franklin97355]

Or direct to

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

for AVG and

http://www.safer-networking.org

fror SpyBot S&D

 

[zestril5]

I install AVG and Spybot Search and Destroy on every new computer I make. I consider both of these programs as important as the operating system itself. Both work so well, that although I see Adaware, CWShredder and other free spy and AV software mentioned all the time in these pages I have found that these 2 take care of just about everything. Only on rare occasion have I had to do something manually to get rid of malware with these 2 programs on the job.
On established systems if there is a suspected virus problem and the customer has Norton or McAffe, off they go and these 2 get installed.
More than 60% of my home service calls are because of spyware or viruses and these are 2 outrageous tools for making me look like I know what I'm doing.

 

[linney]

On the prevention side of things I post this.

Set your surfing user up as a Limited User so "nasties" can't do major damage to your system.
These following sites are general security sites which will help you with some security ideas.

Beginners Guides: Spyware Protection and Removal

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1458&page=1

This is an 8 page article but worth the read.

Here's one from CERT, the Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute.

http://www.cert.org/homeusers/HomeComputerSecurity

http://www.cnet.com/software/0-6688749-8-7248268-4.html

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Markus+Jansson+security

Microsoft TechNet Security - Columns

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/columns/security/default.asp?frame=true

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...ecurity/prodtech/Windows/Win2kHG/05SConfg.asp